Sometimes, when in the most socially confining and rigid situations, the mind wanders into the realm of the absurd. These moments catch you off guard until they’ve already passed, and by that time, all that remains is the smirk left on your face. If you have any desire to act out on these socially liberating thoughts, Eugene Improv may have your answer.
Eugene Improv founders Aryan Sarparast and Michael Nguyen, both University students, found inspiration in the Portland Improv group and decided to bring these socially outlandish demonstrations to Eugene.
Nguyen had been attending Portland “freeze” events for years, organizing and assisting Portland Improv officials and looked to start a Eugene group upon his move south for school.
“The worst part about having events is the crippling effect of not having enough people show up,” Sarparast said.
Balancing a full load of credits with social organizing can be a daunting task. However, as Nguyen said, “Right now we’re just taking small steps.”
“Flash mob” type events began taking shape under the direction of Charlie Todd in New York City in 2001. Improv Everywhere, Todd’s comedic performance art group, began with pranks placing bathroom attendants in McDonald’s restaurants and have expanded to the infamous “freeze” demonstrations, where in some cases more than 1,000 people hold poses for five minutes in dense urban areas. Todd wrote a book on the group called “Causing a Scene” and has since amassed a video archive of the so called “missions” on the group’s Web site.
However, as Nguyen soon found out, starting from the ground up in a small city like Eugene is much different than his experience in Portland. The fledgling Eugene group has faced its share of difficulties over its year-long existence, mostly having to do with attendance issues. Many of its events attracted 12 or fewer members at a time.
Another minor point of divergence between Eugene Improv and the larger Improv Everywhere is motive. While Todd believes improv should make a memorable impression on its audience, the Eugene group believes it is more about audience participation.
“It’s not just about getting attention. Yes, that’s part of it, but it’s also about getting people involved in a greater community,” Sarparast said.
Both he and Nguyen also find the “missions” to be a good opportunity to gauge behavior and better understand group dynamics.
“We like to think that with a group so large you are able to do things that as a single individual you would never ever be able to do,” Sarparast said.
Challenging norms and standards provides structure to the events and ends up generating an interesting social commentary.
Nguyen said most of Eugene Improv’s events have been completely original.
“Aryan and I try to plan most of the events as original, just to make it more of a Eugene exclusive thing, and that’s where it sets the line between Eugene Improv and Portland Improv,” Nguyen said.
Successes and failures counter balance for the group, and they need back-up plans for the times when disaster strikes.
“It’s gotten to the point where we have three back-up plans,” Sarparast said.
Sarparast related the story of the group’s first event where they had planned a prank involving 200 people, all of whom had said via Facebook they would attend, but only 12 showed.
“We had to have a crowd that was big enough to get attention, so what we had to do was find an audience that was smaller,” Sarparast said.
Nguyen figured they could still perform some sort of prank with 12-person group, and opted to have all attendees disperse equally through a crowd watching University a cappella group “On the Rocks.”
Sarparast walked to the front of the crowd acting as if he was just alerted about the latest Al-Qaeda bombing and yelled for everyone to “Run!”
The participants then fanned out, running straight through the crowd, in hopes of triggering a mass rush for the doors. Needless to say the prank was a complete dud. Sarparast went to the front of the stage prematurely and ended up running out the door with six stragglers.
Amid the chaos, Nguyen’s pocket knife fell on the floor, and someone in the crowd yelled, “He’s got a knife!” Luckily the pranksters made it out handcuff-free, albeit their dignities were slightly tarnished. It went down as an epic fail, but a comical one.
Sarparast spoke of future events that seemed to have more implicit themes regarding things like critiquing certain exclusive student-athlete buildings on campus or demonstrations with politically charged messages.
Whatever they do, Sarparast said it will be something worth being a part of.
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Local improv pranksters encourage participation
Daily Emerald
February 17, 2010
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